Cannibal Holocaust
Year: 1980
Director: Ruggero Deodato
Starring: Francesca Ciardi, Luca Giorgio Barbareschi, Robert Kerman, Perry Pirkanen & Gabriel Yorke
Runtime: 96 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 05/03/21
Director: Ruggero Deodato
Starring: Francesca Ciardi, Luca Giorgio Barbareschi, Robert Kerman, Perry Pirkanen & Gabriel Yorke
Runtime: 96 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 05/03/21
The name Cannibal Holocaust carries with it such great expectations to anyone who has heard it uttered before as it is one of the most infamous films ever made. Making its premier in 1980, Cannibal Holocaust would go on to be banned in over fifty countries, including the UK, and wouldn’t be granted a rating by the BBFC until 2001. Whilst the film was still on the festival circuit rumours began to spread that the deaths depicted in the film were real, and that director Ruggero Deodato had created a snuff film and was passing it off as fiction. This was almost twenty years before The Blair Witch Project achieved a similar level of misdirection, however due to the extremely graphic and violent nature of Cannibal Holocaust it ultimately led to Deodato being dragged through the courts on murder charges, leaving him to protest his innocence as those involved with the film came forward to prove that they were indeed alive and well.
The film is notorious for many reasons but key among them is the very real and often very graphic executions of animals. Throughout Cannibal Holocaust you’ll see a monkey and a snake be beheaded, a pig kicked around and shot in the head as its corpse twitches on the ground, a tarantula hacked to pieces, and a giant tortoise beheaded and mutilated. It’s not for the faint of heart, when those deaths look too real to be staged or those innards too detailed, the unfortunate truth is it is actually real. Whilst no people were harmed (sort of) a lot of animals were and that’s the primary reason behind its ban in so many countries.
Whilst the actors involved were never physically harmed, it’s a miracle they weren’t in a lot of cases, and some of the cast members have been very outspoken about the psychological damage they have suffered from taking part in the film. Francesca Ciardi is a prime example of this; she specifically requested not to have her breasts visible during a sex scene, however Deodato did everything in his power to make it so that not only were her breasts totally visible the entire time, but that she was as uncomfortable as she could possibly be. Some of the villagers were also forced to be in some extremely unsafe environments, such as a burning building with no safety equipment to protect them from the fire or the buildings inevitable collapse.
It’s these things that make Cannibal Holocaust not just a difficult watch, but a morally dubious one at that. Even the act of committing to watch the film, regardless of how much enjoyment you get from it, is in many ways problematic.
The film is notorious for many reasons but key among them is the very real and often very graphic executions of animals. Throughout Cannibal Holocaust you’ll see a monkey and a snake be beheaded, a pig kicked around and shot in the head as its corpse twitches on the ground, a tarantula hacked to pieces, and a giant tortoise beheaded and mutilated. It’s not for the faint of heart, when those deaths look too real to be staged or those innards too detailed, the unfortunate truth is it is actually real. Whilst no people were harmed (sort of) a lot of animals were and that’s the primary reason behind its ban in so many countries.
Whilst the actors involved were never physically harmed, it’s a miracle they weren’t in a lot of cases, and some of the cast members have been very outspoken about the psychological damage they have suffered from taking part in the film. Francesca Ciardi is a prime example of this; she specifically requested not to have her breasts visible during a sex scene, however Deodato did everything in his power to make it so that not only were her breasts totally visible the entire time, but that she was as uncomfortable as she could possibly be. Some of the villagers were also forced to be in some extremely unsafe environments, such as a burning building with no safety equipment to protect them from the fire or the buildings inevitable collapse.
It’s these things that make Cannibal Holocaust not just a difficult watch, but a morally dubious one at that. Even the act of committing to watch the film, regardless of how much enjoyment you get from it, is in many ways problematic.
The story of Cannibal Holocaust is not what you’re likely to expect if you’re going in on the premise of blood, gore, and animal cruelty. The film frames itself around the character of Professor Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman), an anthropologist who agrees to lead a rescue mission to search for missing filmmakers Alan Yates (Gabriel Yorke), Mark Tomaso (Luca Giorgio Barbareschi), Faye Daniels (Francesca Ciardi), and Jack Anders (Perry Pirkanen). He journeys into the Amazon rainforest, but as he descends deeper into what is known as the ‘Green Inferno’, he witnesses first-hand the barbarity of the tribespeople that inhabit the land. After witnessing countless rituals of rape, torture, and cannibalism, he discovers a shrine erected out of the rotting carcasses of the filmmakers he set out to find.
Bringing their footage back to New York, he and a board of TV broadcasters review the footage to deem how much of it they could broadcast, framing the native people as the villains of the story in a sensationalist fashion to give viewers the blood they lust after, and the sob story of a group of young inspiring Americans brutally murdered.
Monroe insists that the footage not be shown to the public, and ultimately shows the board the truth behind the filmmakers’ demise where it is revealed that they attacked and brutalised the villagers, before being overwhelmed by them and deservedly meeting grizzly fates.
Bringing their footage back to New York, he and a board of TV broadcasters review the footage to deem how much of it they could broadcast, framing the native people as the villains of the story in a sensationalist fashion to give viewers the blood they lust after, and the sob story of a group of young inspiring Americans brutally murdered.
Monroe insists that the footage not be shown to the public, and ultimately shows the board the truth behind the filmmakers’ demise where it is revealed that they attacked and brutalised the villagers, before being overwhelmed by them and deservedly meeting grizzly fates.
I do not like Cannibal Holocaust, but the way it represents how the media are always trying to manipulate the truth for a good story is certainly handled far better than I expected, and in a more nuanced way, than how films like this normally handle their subject matter. The first half of the film does as much as possible to convince you that the natives are the villains of the story, and that they deserve the mistreatment they are receiving at the hands of Monroe’s guides. But once you see why the filmmakers were killed in the horrific way they were, it becomes much more obvious that the real savages are actually us in the western world for believing we have the right to assert our dominance over those kinds of people simply because we are ‘civilised’. I’ll give it credit where it’s due, it’s clever. But it is at no point an enjoyable film to watch.
Not only is the film just generally unpleasant with the constant graphic violence and animal cruelty, but all of the acting performances are terrible to the point where I found myself accidentally laughing. At the time the film was made all of the actors were students, unknowns yet to land themselves a role in anything. If I were a casting director and I had seen Cannibal Holocaust I would never have given those actors a job after seeing just how bad they were in that film. Much of the dialogue was improvised too so it can’t even be blamed on a bad script, they just can’t act!
The camera is also generally off-putting. It’s an early attempt at found footage before the world even knew what found footage was, and the camera is handled with all the care of a baby with a rattle. It’s clear that none of these people had ever used a camera before, and that greatly detracts from the story because they’re supposed to be filmmakers. Whilst shaky, disorientating camera work is certainly a staple of found footage films, Cannibal Holocaust takes this to the next level with no regard to any basic filming techniques.
I was mildly excited to watch Cannibal Holocaust after hearing so much about it for so many years. I enjoy seeking out controversial films that will push the boundaries of my moral compass. But Cannibal Holocaust did not overstep the boundaries in ways I enjoyed, nor was the film well made. So, I can’t recommend it to anyone really. If you’re in it for the gore then prepare to be disappointed because watching real animals get butchered is really not what I would consider good entertainment. If you’re in it for sociological commentary, then you could do better. It handles those themes better than I anticipated but it’s wrapped up in such a turd of a film that you’d be better served watching something more entertaining with less nuanced handling of such themes. If you’re watching it just for the sake of being able to say “I’ve watched Cannibal Holocaust” then go for it, but to be perfectly honest now I’m on the other side of that journey I’m not sure it’s a title I’m particularly proud to hold.
Not only is the film just generally unpleasant with the constant graphic violence and animal cruelty, but all of the acting performances are terrible to the point where I found myself accidentally laughing. At the time the film was made all of the actors were students, unknowns yet to land themselves a role in anything. If I were a casting director and I had seen Cannibal Holocaust I would never have given those actors a job after seeing just how bad they were in that film. Much of the dialogue was improvised too so it can’t even be blamed on a bad script, they just can’t act!
The camera is also generally off-putting. It’s an early attempt at found footage before the world even knew what found footage was, and the camera is handled with all the care of a baby with a rattle. It’s clear that none of these people had ever used a camera before, and that greatly detracts from the story because they’re supposed to be filmmakers. Whilst shaky, disorientating camera work is certainly a staple of found footage films, Cannibal Holocaust takes this to the next level with no regard to any basic filming techniques.
I was mildly excited to watch Cannibal Holocaust after hearing so much about it for so many years. I enjoy seeking out controversial films that will push the boundaries of my moral compass. But Cannibal Holocaust did not overstep the boundaries in ways I enjoyed, nor was the film well made. So, I can’t recommend it to anyone really. If you’re in it for the gore then prepare to be disappointed because watching real animals get butchered is really not what I would consider good entertainment. If you’re in it for sociological commentary, then you could do better. It handles those themes better than I anticipated but it’s wrapped up in such a turd of a film that you’d be better served watching something more entertaining with less nuanced handling of such themes. If you’re watching it just for the sake of being able to say “I’ve watched Cannibal Holocaust” then go for it, but to be perfectly honest now I’m on the other side of that journey I’m not sure it’s a title I’m particularly proud to hold.